EUROPE’S MIGRANT WARZONE
Tear gas, water cannon and riot police called in as hundreds storm Hungary’s border fence
RIOT police fired tear gas and water cannon at migrants locked out of Europe yesterday as they tried to force their way across the border.
Hundreds of frustrated migrants stormed the new 13ft-high razor wire separating Serbia from Hungary, throwing rocks and bricks at lines of guards and chanting demands to be let in.
Police responded by spraying tear gas, triggering a panicked stampede by the crowd including women and children.
Several migrants fainted, among them a woman holding a baby, while a pregnant woman was seen being taken away on a stretcher.
Some pushed to the front of the crowd and held young children above their heads as they faced police on the frontier in an appeal for mercy, but they were not allowed through.
Thousands of migrants, who mostly want to get to Germany, have been left stranded after Hungary completed the fence along its 110 mile border with Serbia and introduced a crackdown on Tuesday.
Hungary claims it is simply fulfilling its duty to protect the EU border. But its hardline stance has been strongly criticised by the United Nations and Amnesty Inter- national. Hungarian Foreign minister Peter Szijjarto last night told local television that ‘a group of very aggressive migrants’ were ‘persistently attacking Hungarian police with rocks and pieces of concrete’.
Officials said they will keep the border at the town of Roszke closed for at least the next 30 days. It had been the main route through the Balkans for those trying to get to Germany, with 200,000 passing through Hungary so far this year.
More than 500 migrants have been arrested in Hungary since Tuesday when the country introduced prison sentences of up to five years for those who damage its fence to get through.
Migrants blocked by the shutdown yesterday sought to take alternative routes to Austria and Germany through neighbouring countries.
Some of those stranded in Serbia on the Hungarian border walked across cornfields to reach crossings into the EU via Croatia.
Croatia said it would allow free pas- sage across its territory, but neighbouring Slovenia last night said it would become the latest EU country to bring back border controls.
There were also warnings about the danger of thousands of undetonated landmines along the Croatian border with Serbia laid during the 1990s Balkans war.
Croatian authorities estimate 50,966 landmines from the war remain unaccounted for, with 500 people killed in the minefields since the war ended a decade ago. Check- points have been brought back across the EU’s Schengen Zone of 26 countries, which had removed all border controls, after Germany abruptly announced it would be reintroducing checks on Sunday.
Around 2,000 people were stranded in the railway station in Salzburg, Austria, yesterday after Germany asked for trains across the border to be stopped.
German police said the vast majority had last night made it across the border on foot.
EU leaders have been deadlocked in bitter disagreements over how to handle the crisis.
Last night Jean Asselborn, the foreign minister of Luxembourg, which currently holds the EU presidency, said the Commission was rethinking a plan to share 160,000 migrants using compulsory quotas.
He said there would be an ‘important change’ to the proposal before an emergency summit of interior ministers held next week.
Officials last night indicated they are prepared to drop the idea of forcing countries to accept asylum seekers. One said: ‘The mandatory scheme is no longer an option.’
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was ‘shocked’ to see Hungary firing tear gas and water cannon at refugees and called for them to be treated with ‘human dignity’.